Conservatory Orchestra Hall

Praised for his emotional energy and technical finesse, Oliver Salonga has performed in the concert halls of the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Italy, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Philippines, Australia, and China. Born in Manila, Salonga, a child prodigy, gained national recognition and have done national concert tours after he won First Prize in National Music Competition for Young Artists (NAMCYA) in 1998 and in 2001. Since then, he has also appeared at music festivals like Neuberg an der Donau Music Festival in Germany, Athenaeum Piano Festival in Italy, JFJC Music Institute Festival in Philippines, EuroArts Academy Winter Festival in Korea and FAIM Summer Festival in China. Salonga is the Gold Medal winner of the 2008 Jeonju International Piano Competition in South Korea. He has also won the Zellen Piano Prize at the Cleveland Institute of Music. He has gained accolades from Hilton Head International Piano Competition, Florida International Piano Competition, and Scottish International Piano Competition. Oliver Salonga received his Artist Diploma and Master of Music in Piano Performance from the Cleveland Institute of Music. He also received his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Piano Performance with minors in Theory and Analysis, Arts Management, and Collaborative Arts from the University of Southern California where he held the Sylvia Grancell Award for his entire doctoral residency.

Oliver has received guidance from outstanding pianists, such as Antonio Pompa-Baldi, Sergei Babayan, Daniel Pollack, Jerome Lowenthal, Robert McDonald, Alexei Kornienko, Norman Krieger, and Angela Cholakian. He is holding teaching positions in piano at Soochow University Conservatory of Music and at FaceArt Institute of Music in China. Dr. Oliver Salonga embraces the Russian School of Piano Performance Tradition.

Oliver Salonga regularly holds masterclasses in Asia, among them at China’s Ernst Piano Foundation Masterclasses Series, Korea’s EuroArts Academy Winter Festival, Thailand’s Princess Galyani Vadhana Institute of Music and Yamaha Music Academy, Singapore’s Yong Siew Toh Consevatory of Music, UAE’s Dubai Piano Institute and British School AbuDhabi, Philippines’ University of the Philippines, University of Sto. Tomas, Philippine High School for the Arts and Cultural Center of the Philippines. He has also given lectures and teaching workshops about “Shaping Artistic Individuality and Creating Sound World”.

As part of the composition department's Expert Interpreter opportunity, YST composition students have written solo works for percussionist Max Riefer. After working with the students last semester during the development of their works, Riefer premieres the resulting compositions on this concert. 

When making art, people must live and work in order. We use our bodies and minds to craft something. We direct, or are directed. We act inside of a system to create something larger than we could alone. As time moves forward and progress is made, things are created to replace people. Machines that work better and faster than we do. Is this exploitative? Is something sacrificed? Do we become lost in the work? As The Assembly Line, we try to find the lines that divide man and machine, progress and regression, humans and labour. The Mechanical Being brings together electronics, acoustics, automation, and manual work in a spirit of cooperation. Spanning both film and music, the programme presents a physical dialogue that happens between man and contraption. The interfacing that happens every day, yet yields no further understanding between the two, beyond what already exists. In The Garden of Earthly Delights, live sound strives to communicate with film of the past. There will be a 10 minute dialogue and Q&A session following the final performance.